


trade me ashes for my history

by whitchry9



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Bargaining, Five Stages of Grief, Friendship/Love, Gen, Loss, Love, M/M, Podfic Available, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Suffering, merry christmas enjoy the pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 11:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17140580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: Matt has lost a lot of things in his life. Some he has accepted. Other he will not.





	trade me ashes for my history

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beguile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/gifts).



> this is an AU at some point after Defenders, ignoring most of S3 (largely cause I haven't watched it all yet), and assuming him and Foggy get together after Matt doesn't die but handles the not dying a bit better

Matt didn’t have a particular attachment to his personal history. There was a lot of it he’d rather forget, honestly. There had been so much _loss_. Some of it he could manage, like his sight, although he was angry and frustrated and indignant with rage for a while, but he made it work. Other things, like his father’s death, ate him up from the inside, fueled him in the worst possible way.

And those were just in a span of a year.

 

There was the orphanage, Stick, the indignity of high school, college, law school, Elektra.

 

With Elektra, he knew it was coming. Could sense it a mile away, could feel that his grasp on his own life was slipping with every second he spent with her, but he didn’t care. Not with the way she made him feel. The way she made him think he could feel, every day, if they spent them together.

 

Then she was gone too. Not lost, but gone, leaving Matt alone with blood on his hands and growing dread in his chest.

 

But he managed that too.

 

He kept losing people and things and moments, things he wanted to hold onto, wanted to grab with both hands and cling to with all of his might, but he _couldn’t._

Elektra came back, and then she died. Then she came back, but came back wrong. Stick came back and then he died, and then he and Elektra died, except he didn’t.

 

(Maybe he came back wrong.)

 

It would explain why he was currently ready to bargain with an entity that he’d never dreamt of existing before that godawful day. That fucking awful day. He thinks a lot of people have done things since then that they’d never dreamt of.

(He knows that Tony Stark came back from space broken, that Karen received a frantic phone call from someone named Micro that made her cry, knows that both Brett and his mother vanished, that Marci disappeared, that Wakanda, only recently opening its borders to the world at large, was devastated by whatever battle raged there. He knows that he felt Foggy slip between his fingers as he howled and screamed and pleaded for whatever God might still exist to just let him have this one thing, please.)

 

God didn’t listen, so Matt was working his way down the list.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I want him back,” Matt says. His voice feels like it belongs to someone else. His body feels like it belongs to someone else. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking. Maybe if it was someone else’s body he wouldn’t be standing here, willing to exchange anything for the life of one man.

 

His fists clench a bit, reflexively. He wills them to stay at his sides, still. This is not a problem he can punch. It would be so much easier if violence would fix this, but he’s tried that for the past week, and he can’t punch himself awake so all he can do is stand here and beg.

 

“You bargain for the life of one man?”

Matt squares his chin and looks up in the direction he thinks is the face. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“He may only be one life, one insignificant, small, human life, but that life holds infinite value. Could hold so much more.”

There is no response.

Matt softens, or rather, crumples. “Because I love him. Love makes no person insignificant.”

 

He is considered.

“Tell me more, about what makes him significant.”

 

Matt doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know if there are any words. Doesn’t know if there is enough time for him to convey the urgency of this request, doesn’t think he can handle being stopped in the middle if he’s not allowed to finish. He’s not sure if there is a finish. If he starts, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop, because there is no end to what makes Foggy significant. To what makes Matt love him. Why he needs him back.

 

He opens his mouth and just stands there, all the words fighting for purchase. He’s never felt so _useless_ as a lawyer before.

 

“He has always seen me for exactly what I am, nothing more, nothing less, and he still loves me for that. Even the parts I hid, the parts I lied about, they didn’t matter. The history we share… he is the only person who never left me. I will not let him be taken from me. He would never leave me.”

 

There is a broad smile, and Matt’s heart sinks.

 

“I cannot return him for you-” in that split second, Matt is ready to fall to his knees and beg, “-for nothing. Everything in this world has a cost.”

“Anything,” he breathes. He cannot conceive of anything that would be worse than this.

 

Matt counts five heartbeats before there’s a response.

 

“Anything?”

 

One heartbeat before he answers. “ _Yes.”_

“Even if he were lost to you in a different way?”

Matt falters. “I don’t understand.”

“He will be returned in physical form, reshaped from the dust. But he will be lost to you in a different way.”

Matt can’t comprehend any way it could be worse. Even if he can’t have Foggy, he will still know that Foggy exists in the world, that he is there and the world is better for it. Matt would trade his life for Foggy’s in a heartbeat, in less than a heartbeat.

“I don’t care. I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t have him.”

 

Matt counts his heart beat six more times before there’s a reply.

 

“Very well.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He’s standing in his apartment, and he’s not sure why, since he was certain that he was just doing something important. Maybe he needs to get more sleep. He hasn’t been sleeping much since half the world turned to ash. There have been too many screams and not enough sirens, and even though the crime isn’t organized, isn’t intended to be malicious, he still can’t let people get hurt. He’s been spending his nights on the streets, venturing far outside his neighbourhood, collapsing into bed as the sun starts to come up.

 

Maybe he was getting ready for work. He feels for his wrist. 3:15pm. He’s not wearing his Daredevil outfit, nor is he wearing a suit for work.

 

His phone vibrates somewhere, and Matt remembers that he silenced it because he couldn’t bear to hear the names of people that were calling. Or rather, couldn’t bear the absence of people who weren’t.

 

He finds it half tangled in the sheets and swipes to answer the call.

 

“Hello?”

“Oh god,” a voice exhales. “Matty, it’s me, I don’t know what happened, but I’m back and I know you had something to do with it. Oh buddy I missed you. Are you home? I can be there in like five minutes.”

“What?”

The voice is foreign, but is talking to him like they’re familiar. Is this some kind of cruel joke? Has the universe not caused enough pain in recent weeks that it sees fit to mock him?

“Matt, are you okay?”

Honestly he doesn’t know, because he thinks he might have been sleepwalking despite it being the middle of the afternoon, there’s a hollow ache in his chest like he’s missing something, and this person keeps talking to him like they’re friends and Matt can’t figure this out.

“I’m not sure,” he admits.

“Okay, well I’m on my way. You are at home right? I’ll be there soon.”

“Sorry, what’s your name?”

There’s a pause that seems significant. “Aw, did you hit your head? What have you been doing without me around? It’s me Matty. It’s Foggy.”

“Who?”

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for this was "Birds With Broken Wings" by Ben Caplan. Sorry that it doesn't include much from it, but that one line... damn. 
> 
> I'd apologize for the emotions but you said, and I quote: Any story that must be apologized for is a story worth reading.  
> So. Enjoy?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [trade me ashes for my history [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17267867) by [ShardsOfNarsil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShardsOfNarsil/pseuds/ShardsOfNarsil), [whitchry9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9)




End file.
